Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Rental Properties – proved to be the best investment for landlords so far, until they’re protected by smart coverage like landlord protection insurance. Questions may arise, why should landlords need protection? Well, the straight answer is – they face problems and an ultimate solution to those problems is Landlord Protection Insurance.

Do you believe – It’s not even a problem if it doesn’t have a solution?. For landlords, the solution comes in the form of ‘rental insurance’, ‘liability insurance’, ‘content insurance’, ‘building insurance ‘and ‘emergency cover insurance’ etc. Let’s check them out in short details about the nightmares and the corresponding immunities landlords can have.

Nightmare #1: Rent Default

The most common form of landlords’ nightmare with high frequency. It can happen due to sudden job loss, sickness, carelessness and dishonesty of your tenants. Hence the most common action taken is eviction process – a lengthy one, which will damage you enough in the meantime.

Immunity:Rental insurance – a great back up for rent default and other tenant related problems.

Nightmare #2: Natural Calamities & Burglary

Nature can give you hard time by flooding your building or burning it in fire and the other ways like earthquake, lightening etc. Along with natural calamities, burglary can be another way to damage your furnished possessions.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Are you protected by the right backups? If you are an owner of a holiday home aka second home, must check to see whether your landlord insurance policies involve Holiday Home Insurance in it or not.

Let’s find out what you should know before jumping to the conclusion:

What’s a Holiday Home Insurance Actually?

Holiday home insurance is a specially designed insurance policy for short-term rental contracts, which means the owners who want to rent their holiday home for less than three months.

What are the Basic Parts of This Insurance?

It comprises of two types of insurances: i) Building insurance – to protect you from damages caused by fire, storm, pipe burst etc. since it covers the structure of your property and ii) Content insurance – covers the belongings (furniture, clothes, and electronic items….) of your home.

Is it a Standard Landlord Insurance for You?

In this context, ‘standard’ means what is best suited for you. Most of the landlord insurers tend to exclude the holiday home insurance from their policies because they consider it as a risk as the owners aren’t really there to take care of their property and there is a possibility that it remains unoccupied for a long time. Still, there is a ray of hope as policies vary from insurer to insurer. So look for the one who is providing your required policies.

Is Transparency a Big Deal?

YES! Your insurance may become invalid in case you hide the fact that you have used your property for holiday renting and your existing insurance policies would not mostly cover holiday lettings. Hence your insurer can accuse you of not being transparent with information regarding your property and inaction can cancel your home insurance for the rental property.

With all the information disclosed above, you are good to go for a suitable Holiday Home Insurance hunting.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

If you own a property or building, the chances are you might give them for rent to tenants. Nevertheless, renting your home or building comes with a lot of risks for investment property owners, which is why many people go for landlord insurance.

But what is landlord insurance? Like any other insurance, landlord insurance provides cover for properties which you are renting out to tenants. This insurance covers a lot of incidents but can be broadly categorised into the following:

• Default on payment of rent

• Damage to the property

• Liability for any injury caused to the property

One of the biggest risks that any landlord can face is the risk of defaulting rent by the tenants. Whether any tenant does that willingly or accidentally, this can create a huge impact on your income and as each month passes by your financial situation becomes much worse, since it can affect your mortgage payments. Obviously, if this goes on for long enough, you can ask your tenant to move out and look for a new one but this takes a lot of time and by the time you are done with this long procedure, you have already suffered a huge financial loss.

So to overcome this problem, many landlords opt for the best value landlord insurance which can significantly reduce your risk from defaulting tenants. Some insurance policies cover the loss of rent during the period when the property is uninhabitable such as during fire accidents, flooding etc. But this policy does not cover the loss against the arrears of rent by tenants. In order to protect yourself from such kind of loss, you will need rent guarantee protection in your rental property insurance policy. Such protection allows the landowner to receive payments when the tenant is unable to pay the rent temporarily. This provides time for the landowner to think about the eviction and if the tenant is evicted, even then the landlords are covered for that period.

So before choosing the best value landlord insurance to make sure you get the rent guarantee protection included in your insurance policy which will help you to be protected from a severe financial crisis. For more information about landlord insurance and its coverage contact SGUA.